Talk:Delphi Wiki
What happened to our SysOps? We only have three SysOps and none of them have been active in months. Should we appeal to the Wikia staff to make more of the active users on the Delphi Wiki into SysOps? :If you think more are needed, just decide amongst the community which users are active enough and trusted and then let me know and I can assign admin rights to them. Angela talk 02:29, 12 October 2006 (UTC) :: Dummzeuch and Eddie spring to mind as most active users. If more are needed i'm willing to take on the job. Xsintill 07:14, 12 October 2006 (UTC) ::: What is a sysop expected to do? And what can he do? --Dummzeuch 09:03, 12 October 2006 (UTC) :::: I don't think they're expected to do anything other than be active on the site regularly (if someone leaves, it's fair to remove their access in my opinion). In terms of what they can do, it's basically just a few extra features, like deleting pages and blocking users. There's a how-to guide at Help:Administrators' how-to guide. Angela talk 09:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC) :::::As Angela said, SysOps are not really expected to do anything extra, but they do have a few more facilities for helping maintain the wiki. I'm a SysOp on the Adobe Premiere Pro wiki. I would be happy if Dummzeuch, Xsintill and myself were made SysOps, since were currently the most active. I don't see a need to remove any SysOps at this point. Eddie 13:44, 12 October 2006 (UTC) ::::::Angela, are you still monitoring this discussion? Eddie 13:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC) :::::::Yes, but I was a bit concerned about the message below. Adminship isn't about moderating the content, or getting users' email addresses. It's really just a tool for reverting vandalism more easily. Since Dummzeuch hasn't said whether he wants this or not, I'll just make Eddie and Xsintill admins for now. Please do read the how-to guide I linked above and Wikia's protection policy first though. Angela talk 14:01, 26 October 2006 (UTC) ::::::::I'd rather spend my time writing articles. --Dummzeuch 14:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC) :::::::::I'm not sure what moderating you're refering to and I don't know what Xsintill wants with the e-mail addresses (I'm sure he'll clarify soon enough), I simply needed the ability to import wiki pages. Thanks for the upgrade. Eddie 16:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC) ::::::::::To clarify things about the email question I had. I was just thinking out loud. Thinking it would be helpful to send out a mail asking the users to help on certain projects. But on second thought some people would not like unsollicited emails so therefor i will not follow through up on this idea. I think because we are talking about a wiki the comunity itself is the moderator. Unless the wiki isn't abused i don't think it's up to the sysops to intervene. I will only take sysop actions after i have discussed it with other users/sysops. Xsintill 15:48, 29 October 2006 (UTC) Wishlist / ideas page Every wiki page has an associated discussion page for discussions about that particular page, but there is no generic discussion page for the wiki has a whole. Either we can use the forum for this, or we could create a specific page where people can post ideas of what they would like to see in the wiki. Thoughts? Eddie 19:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC) :I like the idea of a Wishlist --Aligma 01:32, 2 August 2006 (UTC) Maintaining pages I don't think it is a good idea to arbitrarily remove stuff without discussing it first. The idea of a wiki is to do stuff by communal consent, hence the "talk/discussion" pages. Eddie 15:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC) ::What exactly are you refering to here? Was this refering to the stuff on this page? It hadn't really had any responses since 2005, but it's easy enough to bring back. Would you like me to restore it? - Descendant 20:45, 28 July 2006 (UTC) :::No need to bring it back, I agree what you removed was fairly old, I'm basically trying to find out what policy we should subscribe to about deleting content. My preference is to make a note next to the content for about a week and if no objections are raised then go ahead and remove it. (Perhaps have an arhive page?). Eddie 00:10, 29 July 2006 (UTC) ::::That sounds like a good idea. Also we can use categories for this purpose as well. For example I added a category to a couple of articles "Marked for Deletion" with comments on the talk page. We could also use a "Section Marked for Deletion" Category. ::::This way a person can suggest that something be deleted by categorizing it as such and making notes in the talk page. If the consensus were that it ought to be removed then it can be. And articles marked as such can be easily found for others to review. What do you think? - Descendant 01:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC) :::::The category is an excellent idea. Wikipedia has a template that puts an alert at the top of pages marked for deletion. Perhaps Wikia has something similar? Eddie 15:24, 30 July 2006 (UTC) ::::::I think we have to make our own here, but we can base it on the templates of other sites easy enough. - Descendant 17:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC) Publicising the Delphi wiki I invite everyone who wants to see this wiki succeed to post references to it wherever you go on the Internet that is appropriate. There are many discussion fora and newsgroups out there. The more people start refering to this site the more people will become aware of its existence. This will hopefully lead to more contributions. Eddie 15:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC) ::Yep, but I think, as was suggested to me, that also it's going to sort of have to be pushed to a certain point of usefullness as a resource before it can sort of take off on it's own. It is linked here and there...I pushed it on a few IRC Delphi channels and got someone to promote it a bit in newsgroups. Nick Hodges plugged it on his new internet radio show and says he will blog about it. ::What do you think of the idea of focusing on a VCL reference? - Descendant 20:43, 28 July 2006 (UTC) :::A VCL reference would be a good thing in a wiki format since many people would be able to contribute to it. There are other sites out there that do a good job, but they can easily stagnate when maintained by individuals. Eddie 00:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC) Suggested First Project of Delphi Wiki Version 2.0 - COMPLETE VCL REFERENCE OK, i've been talking with people around the net about promoting the wiki...and as Vibe on efnet has a great suggestion. For a Wiki to take off we have to reach a critical mass of people before the community can drive the wiki forward. So we need something usefull and reliable to get people to use this site. As Vibe suggested the VCL documentation has been lacking and so I would like to get together a core group of 5-10 people who beleive in this project to create a complete, reliable and superior documentation for the VCL? (And units, functions) Thoughts? - Descendant 18:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC) Speaking of popularity, a search of "Delphi" on Google brings this wiki up on the 14th page. --Aligma 06:17, 27 July 2006 (UTC) :Trues, but it's the 3rd hit for "delphi wiki". Wikipedia's Object Pascal article is first, and a blog post talking about this Wikia (back when it was called "Wikicities") is 2nd. Angela (talk) 12:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC) :::Yea, I think we have a fairly good ranking on Google, if someone is looking for the wiki. We are linked off of some highly ranked sites like Wikipedia...we are about to get a link off of the Borland site when Nick blogs on us, which he said he would do, which will improve our ranking more. :::Of course Google ranks pages not only by how many other sites link to it, but by how many important sites link to it, and of course Wikipedia is an important site and so is Borland. - Descendant 13:52, 27 July 2006 (UTC) Preliminary Tasks: VCL Templates - Blade Unit Templates - Blade Function Templates - Blade Function List Template - Blade Let's schedule a live chat...we now have our own channel selection on the CGI interface to the wikipedia chat (the Live Chat and Support link on the left)...soon we'll be able to have a direct link to it. Angela rocks. ;) - Descendant 18:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC) Sounds like a great idea, but what does blade mean? --Aligma 03:28, 26 July 2006 (UTC) LOL, Blade is a guy I came across on Undernet I believe. :) He wants to do the templates. - Descendant 13:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC) Have you talked to Blade lately? Blade are you out there? Is there some way we can start doing the documentation without requiring the templates? Would it be possible for us to have a page dedicated to chat on this project (seperate from this one)? --Aligma 00:33, 1 August 2006 (UTC) ::I've been looking for Blade but haven't seen him in a while...I dunno...He'll turn up on IRC sometime prolly. ::Yeah, let's go ahead and make a seperate VCL page and get started. :) - Descendant When To Schedule Chat? Put your proposed time here. Thanks. - Descendant 13:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC) Hey guys, I'd like to propose that we have the live chat at the following time: * GMT/UTC - 8; Monday 31st July 4:30pm; Pacific Time (US & Canada). * GMT/UTC - 5; Monday 31st July 7:30pm; Eastern Time (US & Canada). * GMT/UTC +10; Tuesday 1st August 9:30am; Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra. --Aligma 23:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC) Sounds great to me...we need a couple of more "core" people to participate for this first project (of course we want as many as possible). I'm thinking at least 5. We have three include me, Blade and you...I'd like to round up two more by the meeting. Please ask around...and anyone reading this PLEASE express your interest here! Thanks. - Descendant 13:52, 27 July 2006 (UTC) :Special times for specific chats is a good idea, but a better one IMHO is to have some regular, recurring time slots for people to gather for chats. For example, if it became known that every Saturday morning at 11AM people gather to chat then the chat community would grow as more and more people gather at those known times. :As an aside it is important to be aware of different time zones, hence my recommendation of several recurring time slots. Eddie 15:18, 28 July 2006 (UTC) ::Cool, that's a good suggestion. Eddie, would you be able to make the time proposed by Aligma for a sort of "getting organized" chat? - Descendant 20:47, 28 July 2006 (UTC) :::I would like to join, but I'm in Southern California and can only do it between 5PM and 9PM Pacific Time during the week. 7:30PM Eastern Time is way past my bed time. :) Weekends are more flexible. Eddie 00:18, 29 July 2006 (UTC) ::::Well I can be pretty flexible generally, so I'll leave it to Aligma...then we can iron out a regularly scheduled chat and other issues. - Descendant 01:35, 30 July 2006 (UTC) :::::Wait a minute...I think we're backwards, if you're in Cali then it would actually be at 4:30 your time. :) We could just move it up 30 minutes or an hour perhaps? - Descendant 01:40, 30 July 2006 (UTC) ::::::Yikes! You're right. Let's leave it at 4:30 rather than change it and cause confusion. :) Eddie 15:27, 30 July 2006 (UTC) :::::::I added the US/Canada Pacific time to the list. If you can't make it till 5, thats only half an hour later than 4:30pm anyway. I'll still definitely be in chat then... --Aligma 02:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC) :::::::Eddie and I were there for the first IRC chat, the main conclusion that we drew was this is probably the best place to make plans for the Wiki, especially considering timezone differences and people's availability. --Aligma 00:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC) ::::::::::I'm here! :( Sorry...I just got in, I get held up with a client. :( - Descendant 00:59, 1 August 2006 (UTC) Documenting the VCL I have been attacked for creating stubs for all VCL entries. User:Xsintill and I agreed it would be a good idea to get the stubs in place and categorized and then appeal to others to help flesh out the documentation. It cannot be completely accomplished by two or three people. This is an enormous undertaking! What is the general consensus on how to proceed? Eddie 18:11, 3 October 2006 (UTC) :That wasn't meant to be an attack, I was just questioning whether it makes sense filling this wiki with lots of basically empty pages. Sorry if it could be missunderstood as an attack. --Dummzeuch 19:09, 3 October 2006 (UTC) ::There are very few links to the stub pages, apart from the categories. Someone would have to actively look for one of those items before landing on a stub page. I want to change the "Code Bank" section of the Main Page to a plea for help from the community to help flesh out the stubs. That being said I do not want to make any more changes or additions until we can come to an agreement here. This is a community and I would rather do as the community decides. Hopefully we will get some more votes here. Eddie 14:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC) :::Maybe we could add a category for these empty component descriptions and a link on the main page that lists this category, so it would be easy to find those pages that need attention. OTOH filling them with content is a huge task, it would be much easier if we could convince Borland / DevCo / DTG to let us use the Delphi Online Help as a source for this dokumentation. In return we could offer that they can build the future online help on the content of this wiki. (John Caster was talking about setting up their own wiki for that purpose, maybe they like the idea of just using an existing one and that they would not have to do the work for transferring the content from whatever internal format they use for the OLH to a Wiki.) ::::There is already a category to link to all of these types of pages. Its called "Stubs". If you click on the Stubs category it lists all pages that need additional content. I agree adding the content will be a huge task. It would be great if we could get permission to use the online help. It may even be possible to do it programatically and import it into the Wiki. Unfortunately I have no idea how to get that persmission. Eddie 16:22, 4 October 2006 (UTC) :::::Does this mean I have to put a hold on stubbing the VCL components untill we know more about whether Devco let's us convert their documentation into a Wiki? Did somebody already ask someone at Devco? If not I'll send an email out to them. Xsintill 5:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC) ::::::If you have a way to contact DevCo, please do. It would be great if they would allow us to use some of the official help as a starting point for our documentation. I stopped stubbing because I am unsure of what the general consensus is in this regard. Unfortunately we're not getting many voices heard here. Eddie 14:31, 5 October 2006 (UTC) :::::::I just have sent an email to Nick Hodges asking him to let us use the VCL documentation for this site. Hopefully he will respond to it. I will let you know what the outcome is when I get a reply. After that I will take up helping out on documenting the VCL. Xsintill 18:54, 7 October 2006 (UTC) ::::::::That's great news! If we get permission to do so, I can write a small app to rip the info out of the D2005 help files and create XML files that can be imported directly into the wiki. Unfortunately our three admins haven't been here in months and they are the only ones with upload capabilities. :( Eddie 21:14, 7 October 2006 (UTC) :::::::::I got word back from Nick Hodges. Basicly he says he will ask for permission. But although he's willing to ask he doubts Borland will let us use the VCL documentation. He also says they are working on setting up a wiki themselves with the possibility to rollback the contributions into the "real" help system.Xsintill 4:39, 8 October 2006 (UTC) ::::::::::It's not looking good if they are taking this long to respond. :( Very sad. Eddie 16:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC) :::::::::::I sent a new mail asking for the status of our request to Nick Hodges. I think we have to set a date so we can take up work on the VCL documentation even if we haven't got word back from Nick. Xsintill 17:42, 17 October 2006 (UTC) ::::::::::::I got an email back from Nick Hodges. Not good news! Nick says Devco/borland wants to have more control over it than is possible when putting the VCL documentation on this Wiki. He also says our efforts are appreciated. So for me this means we can take up the VCL documentation as we were doing earlier. Xsintill 22:44, 20 October 2006 (UTC) :::::::::::::It sounds like they misunderstood our question. We were asking their permission to use text from the Delphi Help files as a starting point for our wiki expanded documentation. Do you think it is worth trying to ask again with clarification? Eddie 23:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC) ::::::::::::::I don't think Nick misunderstood me. Before you posted the last comment I thanked Nick for answering my mail. He responded back. In this mail he offered to blog for us whenever we thought there was a good occasion for it on his homepage. Eddie, if you want to read the email correspondence I had with Nick I can send it to you just contact me via email luc_nevilleatbigfoot.com it's also the way to reach me via MSN. Xsintill 18:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC) :::::::::::::::I trust you, my friend. I'm very disappointed, but not entirely suprised. We need to move on to plan B. I will start a new section to discuss it. Eddie 18:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC) VCL Documentation Plan B Since we are not allowed to use the text from the help files to create the documentation we need a new plan. My suggestion is to create the stubs programmatically to avoid the laborious process we have been following so far. A Sysop has the ability to import articles from an XML file. What we can do is decide on what text to put in the stub and put that into the XML file for all VCL objects and simply import it. The trick is to decide on the stub content. Apart from the categories for the object itself and the unit it belongs to I suggest we also have a template which explains that the stub will eventually point to the official documentation once it goes online at Borland. So each stub would contain the following text: Technical Comments: (Known issues / Documentation clarifications / Things to beware of) User Comments: (Please leave your name with your comment.) Category:VCLCategory:aaa unitCategory:bbb object Where "OfficialDoc" is a template with the text explaining that eventually there will be pointers into the official documentation when it goes online. "aaa" is the name of the unit the object belongs to. "bbb" is the name of the object(class/routine/constant). Eddie 19:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC) : So the First step should be to make some people sysops. Has the sysop got the ability to contact users using their mail address? After that create a list of what more should be included into the XML file.213.93.164.192 20:24, 24 October 2006 (UTC) ::I believe so. I have asked Angela to make me as SysOp. If she does then I will make you one too. Eddie 22:46, 24 October 2006 (UTC) :::We now have SysOp status. When I get a moment I am going to test importing a new page to see if that works. If we can only import existing pages that were originally exported then we're back to doing things manually. :( I had a though that maybe we should use one of the current VCL object stubs, make it look the way we want all the stubs to look and use that as a template for the new stubs. What do you think? Eddie 16:47, 26 October 2006 (UTC) ::::Good news. I have successfully imported a new page, so we are good to go. Let's complete the specification for the standard stub for the VCL entries. Eddie 22:06, 26 October 2006 (UTC) :::::I have used TAnimate as an example of the way all the VCL objects will appear after the automated stub process. I have updated the specification for the standard stub above. I created a first draft of the template explaining the Borland online documentation. Please comment. Another thing I would like to do at the same time is redirect all VCL objects like "TAnimate" to "TAnimate Class". I would also like to make it such that all items that start with "T" (and is not an English word) will appear in the category sorted by the second letter. In other words, TAnimate will appear under "A" not "T" in the VCL category. Thoughts? The documentation breaks each unit into up to six sections: "Classes", "Constants", "Interfaces", "Types", "Routines" and "Variables". We should probably have categories for these as well, however we are going to need to put some serious thought into our categories. They need to be more hierarchical. I will put my ideas together for comment later. Eddie 17:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC) ::::::Eddie i was thinking we could extend the template with the following sections so people can easily fill them in. *Unit name(the unit in which the VCL item resides) *Name (the name of the VCL item) *Declaration *Hierarchy *Type(unit, class, interface, method, property, const, set, etc.) *Design time image *Runtime image(when visual) *Property editor image *Description(what does it do) *Usage(how to use the VCL item) *Bugs(Known bugs) *Relates to(other VCL items) *Example code(different approaches) *Example code output :::::: Please change the list if something seems incorrect or add to it if you know forgotten ones. I think TAnimate should be under both the "T" and the "A". Looking in indexes of books i would look up TAnimate under the "T" but I can imagine somebody else doing it under the "A". Xsintill 18:04, 30 October 2006 (UTC) :The name is in big letters as the head of the article, I'm not sure it needs to be repeated in the body of the article? The unit it belongs to will be in the categories, but I can understand that some pages will get quite long, so it would be convenient to have it near the top. I'm not sure of the usefulness of the design time image unless you want to include one from every version where it changed? Same thing for the property editor image (which takes up a lot of space). Im not sure what the difference is between "Description" and "Usage". Wouldn't the description contain the usage? Example code should be a link rather than fill up the page. See tTreeView for an example of what I envisage. Go ahead and modify TAnimate to the way you think it should look. We'll use that as the "template" for the other articles. I don't know if we can make an article appear in two places in the same category, but I'll try it. I wish we could get more people to help us make these decisions at this crucial point. Eddie 18:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC) ::As I suspected, an article can only appear once in a category. :( I will leave it strictly alphabetical. Eddie 19:03, 30 October 2006 (UTC) :::I have made modifications to TAnimate Class according to our discussions. However, there have been no comments on several of the issues I raised. Eddie 23:01, 1 November 2006 (UTC) Finding Delphi Wiki People * Contributors to the Delphi Wiki: special:activeusers * Delphi Wiki Administrator: special:listusers/sysop List of all articles on Delphi Wiki http://delphi.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Allpages New Front Hi, I revamped the front page...still lots of work to do. Please give me some feedback, I don't want to step on any toes. I'm going to clean up articles, categorize and work on new stuff. Let me know if you like where I'm going. For those still interested in this project I would like to schedule a chat sometime to discuss the future. - Descendant 23:15, 22 July 2006 (UTC) :Good job. An appealing main page is very important, but take care of information overload on the main page. Lists shouldn't include more than about four items. Leave detailed lists for detail oriented pages. Eddie 15:20, 28 July 2006 (UTC) ::Suggested edits for the front page: ::* Remove from "Tutorials and How Tos..." : "Doing This", "Doing That", "Doing the Other Thing". ::* Remove from "Tips and Tricks..." : "This", "That", "The Other". ::* Remove from "People" : "Nerds", "Geeks", "Dorks". ::* Remove from "Reviews" : all the "Item" links. ::* For now, link "Nick Hodges" to "http://blogs.borland.com/nickhodges", "Charlie Calvert" to "http://www.elvenware.com/charlie/delphi/index.html", and "David Itersemone" to "http://blogs.borland.com/davidi/". At the very least, a page could be created with for each of these people and just contain their link. It is worse to have a dead link on the page than a page which has only a small amount of information. If an article is a stub, people will be more likely to expand upon that information as opportunity arises. --Aligma 02:12, 2 August 2006 (UTC) Typo / Minor fix replace "Code Bank Comeing Soon!" with "Code Bank Coming Soon!". I know how to use wikis but I'm scared to edit the front page. Aligma, --220.233.169.72 23:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC) Not At All! You can't break a thing, no worries, please dive in! - 67.76.228.3 01:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC) :I agree, don't be scared. If you make a mistake that you cannot correct, there are many knowledgable people who will be more than willing to help fix it. Eddie 15:23, 28 July 2006 (UTC) I'd like to suggest that the text near the top of the first page should not be italicised - large blocks of italicised text are more difficult to read. --Aligma 02:17, 31 July 2006 (UTC) ::Certainly, and I was thinking we could get rid of it all together. What do you think? - Descendant 16:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC) The Delphi Hour w/ Nick Hodges Thanks Nick for the plug on the Delphi Hour internet radio chat -Descendant 20:08, 26 July 2006 (UTC) Hey Guys Sorry, I'm at crunch time for a release...I'll be back to continue work here in a few days...you can allways email me from my user page or leave me a message there... Descendant 16:15, 14 August 2006 (UTC)